Starmada, Week 2

We had six players for Starmada this last Saturday after Jared's Paranoia one-shot, but people (namely me) kind of wandered in and out, so none of the games actually had all six playing at once.  Here's the run-down:

Game 1: Matt vs. Jared's Star Control II and Homeworld ships and Tim's Mythic on The Trap.  Rolled up a huge pile of asteroid fields which kind of hemmed Matt in, and he had some bad luck for a close loss (if he'd downed one more ship, he'd've achieved victory, but his Catastrophic weapons were rolling terribly).

Game 2: Jared's SCII and HW and my Eldar vs. Tim's Mythic fighters, Matt's catastrophizers, and a couple of ships Ethan threw together (a 100-point broadside escort and a 400-point carrier) on Planetary Assault (homebrew scenario):

Planetary Assault

Attacker: Your objective is to inflict as much damage as possible to one of the enemy's colony worlds. CRAT Limit: 1500.

Defender: Your colony world is under attack!

CRAT Limit: 1800. However, the defender must spend at least 600 points to purchase 6 planet-side fortifications from the following list:

Type: Fighter Base (101)

Hull: 4 3 2 1

Engines 0

Shields: [TL0] 3 3 2 1

Special Equipment - Equipment Tech Level: 2

Carrier (50) : Armor Plating:

Point Defence:

Type: Beam Base (100)

Hull: 4 3 2 1

Engines 0

Shields: [TL0] 3 3 2 1

Weapons : 1:[V], 2:[V], 3:[V], 4:[V], 5:[V], 6:[]

Weapons

Battery V: Particle Beam TL2, 1-3/4-6/7-9, 2/4+/2/1

Piercing +1

[GHI] [GHI] [GHI]

Special Equipment - Equipment Tech Level: 2

Fire Control : Armor Plating:

Anti-Fighter Batteries (5):

Type: Missile Base (100)

Hull: 4 3 2 1

Engines 0

Shields: [TL0] 3 3 2 1

Weapons : 1:[2V], 2:[2V], 3:[2V], 4:[2V], 5:[2V], 6:[V]

Weapons

Battery V: ICBMs TL2, 1-6/7-12/13-18, 1/4+/3/1

Ammo:(13)

[GHI] [GHI] [GHI] [GHI] [GHI] [GHI] [GHI]

Special Equipment - Equipment Tech Level: 2

Fire Control : Armor Plating:

Setup:

First, a planet of size 1d3+1 is placed at the center of the map. Then, 2d3 moons are placed, each between two and four hexes from the planet (attacker and defender alternate placing moons). No two moons may be placed in adjacent hexes. The defender must then place one planetary base on each 'corner' of the hexagonal planet. He and the attacker then alternate placing ships. The defender's ships may be placed anywhere within 6 hexes of the planet, while the attacker's ships may be placed anywhere within 6 hexes of the edge of the map.

Victory:

The defender scores victory points as normal. However, the attacker scores double victory points for destroyed planetary bases, in addition to standard victory points for destroying the defender's ships. Either side may claim victory when it has scored 800 VP.

Jared and I were defending, and everybody else was attacking.  We had three fighter bases and three missile bases - we used the fighter bases for interceptors for Tim's fighters, and the missile bases for long-range firepower.  They split their fleet into three groups by player; Ethan didn't pre-launch his fighters, and got mauled by a missile base, one of Jared's flotillas, and an Eldar cruiser.  Matt's spent a lot of firepower on one of Jared's ships, and then got toasted by a pile of strikers that Jared had launched and an Eldar torpedo flotilla.  Tim's fighters were probably a real threat, but I put up a minefield in front of them and then ran a flotilla behind them, and they took the bait (went for the flotilla rather than the planet's surface where there were more victory points).  So a resounding win for us, but I think the scenario is definitely winnable for the attacker - don't split forces, do prelaunch fighters, and bring faster ships.

Game 3: Alex and Tim vs. Matt and Ethan on Dreadnought Engagement (another homebrew):

Dreadnought Engagement

Some species have a tendency towards building the biggest, most expensive ships that they possibly can and then trying to field them in wartime – Death Stars, Planet Killers, Command Carriers, the Bismarck, and the like. When these massive ships engage, they become centerpieces of the fleet, and their destruction often leads to a rout. Each side has a combat rating limit of 1500 points; however, each fleet must have a single ship with CRAT between 751 and 800 points.

Setup: Setup as for a normal scenario, except as noted above.

Victory: Each side receives victory points as normal, and may declare victory when it has scored 750 VP. The only way to accomplish this, however, is to destroy the enemy dreadnought.

Tim fielded two flights of 350-point Defense 5 independent fighters, Alex had a dreadnought, Ethan had a carrier with a bunch of flights of strikers as well as several flights of  Defense 3 fighters, and Matt had a dreadnought with Cata weapons.  We rolled Nebula for the terrain, but it was decided that it would be several localized gas clouds rather than a full-map effect, so there were three nebula patches of sizes 4, 4, and 5.  These were largely avoided.  From what I hear (I had gone to bed by the time the game started), Ethan's fighters managed to keep Tim's pinned down in dogfights, his strikers did significant damage to Alex's dreadnought, and then Matt's catastrophic guns finished it off for a win for Ethan and Matt.  There were several critiques of the scenario in the reports I read, with the general consensus being that "In future, make it 2000 points, 800 have to be the Dreadnought, and you get double VP for destroying the Dreadnought" would be preferable.  So maybe we'll try that next weekend.

Other things of note:

Jared's ship designs were eerily similar to mine - we both brought out gun-flotillas, minelayers, and lots of speed.  I think he'll be an interesting opponent (and he's undefeated so far...).

Also, we've played the Trap twice, and defense has lost both times.  I think it's winnable, but nobody's managed it just yet.  So that might be on the agenda for next time.

There was some discussion of starting a proper campaign.  Options mentioned for system included Simplest Campaign System, VBAM, Sovereign Stars, and Battlefleet Gothic's system.  So we'll see if that pans out.

And the scoreboard for this week:

Alex: 0/0/1

Ethan: 1/0/1

Jared: 2/0/0

John: 1/0/0

Matt: 2/0/1

Tim: 1/0/2

And cumulative:

Alex: 1/1/4

Ethan: 1/0/1

Jared: 3/0/0

John: 4/1/1

Matt: 3/2/2

Tim: 2/2/3